Cities worldwide are taking back control of their collective water systems. The outcome of two years of research, this new book by Corporate Europe Observatory, Transnational Institute and the Municipal Services Project, the first ever published on the issue, examines the new trend for water ‘remunicipalisation’, analysing the causes of this new phenomenon and assessing its outcomes from a progressive public water management perspective. Case studies analyse the transition from private to public water provision in Paris, Dar es Salaam, Buenos Aires and Hamilton, and look at a national-level experiment in Malaysia. Showing the benefits and challenges of putting these systems back into municipal ownership, the book is a must-read for anyone interested in collective water management today.

Well, I admit I haven’t read it yet, but it’s a great idea.

And then add social housing, local transport and local power generation to the list too, please.

South West have just revised my monthly water tariff and it jumped from £47.50 last November to today’s demand of £71/month starting this April.Reason given, the SW doesn’t have the population to do all the things required of them under required legislation but we have to pay anyway.
The real reason is of course, that the public utility has just been wrenched from the population and because we can’t choose any other alternative we are subject to the worst of all combinations, a PRIVATE MONOPOLY who are ripping- off their customers.Tory MP’s here sit on majorities high enough for them do nothing for their constituents. They are both lazy and content to do nothing because they and their Party are in ideological agreement with the public water supply being hived off to their friends for profit. How many Tory MP’s here have shares in ‘water’ ?

There was an interesting editorial in the Saturday Telegraph about the UK’s policy short termism which specifically referred to the prospect of drought and how plans were discussed in the 1970s to build a water grid. As usual these plans were shelved when it started to rain ( I remember being on holiday in Devon where standpipes were being used and it rained the whole week) Now many of our utilities, which I believe should be in the state’s ownership as they are strategic infrastructure are owned by foreign firms and as the recent decision about nuclear power generation shows, can be subject to foreign political influence. At some time in the future these utlities will have to be returned to public ownership as the private sector will never make the type of investment decision to protect all the nation’s citizens as they are only interested in their own shareholders.

Jeremy Warner at the dear old DT seems to think that the water privatisation is a model for all others…

“Since Mr Cameron cites the water companies by way of a model for road privatisation, let’s start with them. As widely acknowledged, water was among the more successful of the Thatcher-era privatisations. By being required to make a return on capital, water companies have driven big improvements in efficiency, the benefits of which have been shared with customers.”